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commissions had hitherto interposed between him and fortune. His mind, from long contemplation, was familiar with subjects of gigantic proportions; and he had soon sketched out several, and finished some. But the little snug and comfortable houses of England could not contain this colossal progeny ; the doors of our churches are generally opened to art with reluctance our palaces had already admitted more of the President's works than, perhaps, were welcome; and the owners of our galleries were unwilling to make room for such enormous pieces on Scripture subjects. There was no market for the manufacture. Few were tempted to become purchasers, though many were edified with the "Descent of the Holy Ghost on Christ at the Jordan," ten feet by fourteen-"The Crucifixion," sixteen feet by twenty-eight-"The Ascension," twelve feet by eighteen-and "The Inspiration of St. Peter," of corresponding extent. As old age benumbed his faculties, and began to freeze up the well-spring of original thought, the daring intrepidity of the man seemed but to grow and augment. Immense pictures, embracing topics which would have alarmed loftier spirits, came crowding thick upon his fancy, and he was the only person who appeared insensible that such were too weighty for his handling.

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Domestic sorrow mingled with professional disappointment. Elizabeth Shewell-for more than fifty years his kind and tender companion-died on the 6th of December, 1817, and West, seventy-nine years old, felt that he was soon to follow. His wife and he had loved each other some sixty years --had seen their children's children--and the world had no compensation to offer. He began to sink, and though still to be found at his easel, his hand had lost its early alacrity. It was evident that all this was to cease soon; that he was suffering a slow, and a general, and easy decay. The venerable

old man sat in his study among his favourite pictures, a breathing image of piety and contentment, awaiting calmly the hour of his dissolution. Without any fixed complaint, his mental faculties unimpaired, his cheerfulness uneclipsed, and with looks serene and benevolent, he expired 11th March, 1820, in the eighty-second year of his age. He was buried beside Reynolds, Opie, and Barry, in St. Paul's Cathedral. The pall was borne by noblemen, ambassadors, and academicians; his two sons and grandson were chief mourners; and sixty coaches brought up the splendid procession.

Benjamin West was in person above the middle size, of a fair complexion, and firmly and compactly built. His serene brow betokened command of temper, while his eyes, sparkling and vivacious, promised lively remarks and pointed sayings, in which he by no means abounded. Intercourse with courts and with the world, which changes so many, made no change in his sedate sobriety of sentiment and happy propriety of manner, the results of a devout domestic education. His kindness to young artists was great-his liberality seriously impaired his income-he never seemed weary of giving advice-intrusion never disturbed his temper-nor I could the tediousness of the dull ever render him either impatient or peevish. Whatever he knew in art he readily imparted--he was always happy to think that art was advancing, and no mean jealousy of other men's good fortune ever invaded his repose. His vanity was amusing and amiable-and his belief -prominent in every page of the narrative which he dictated to his friend Mr. Galt-that preaching and prophecy had predestined him to play a great part before mankind, and be an example to all posterity, did no one any harm, and himself some good.

As his life was long and laborious, his productions are very numerous. He painted and sketched in oil upwards of four hundred pictures, mostly of an

historical and religious nature, and he left more than two hundred original drawings in his portfolio. His works were supposed by himself, and for a time by others, to be in the true spirit of the great masters, and he composed them with the serious ambition and hope of illustrating Scripture and rendering Gospel truth more impressive. No subject seemed to him too lofty for his pencil; he considered himself worthy to follow the sublimest flights of the prophets, and dared to limn the effulgence of God's glory and the terrors of the day of Judgment. The mere list of his works makes us shudder at human presumption-Moses receiving the Law on Sinai-the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Saviour in the Jordan-the Opening of the Seventh Seal in the Revelations-Saint Michael and his Angels casting out the Great Dragon-the mighty Angel with one foot on sea and the other on earththe Resurrection!-and there are many others of the same class! With such magnificence and sublimity who but a Michael Angelo could cope?

In all his works the human form was exhibited in conformity to academic precepts-his figures were arranged with skill-the colouring was varied and harmonious-the eye rested pleased on the performance, and the artist seemed, to the ordinary spectator, to have done his task like one of the highest of the sons of genius. But below all this splendour there was little of the true vitality-there was a monotony, too, of human character the groupings were unlike the happy and careless combinations of nature, and the figures seemed distributed over the canvass by line and measure, like trees in a plantation. He wanted fire and imagination to be the true restorer of that grand style which bewildered Barry and was talked of by Reynolds. Most of his works -cold, formal, bloodless, and passionless-may remind the spectator of the sublime vision of the Valley of dry bones, when the flesh and skin had

come upon the skeletons, and before the breath of God had informed them with life and feeling.

Though such is the general impression which the works of West make, it cannot be denied that many are distinguished by great excellence. In his Death on the Pale Horse, and more particularly in the sketch of that picture, he has more than approached the masters and princes of the calling. It is, indeed, irresistibly fearful to see the triumphant march of the terrific phantom, and the dissolution of all that earth is proud of beneath his tread. War and peace, sorrow and joy, youth and age, all who love and all who hate, seem planet-struck. The Death of Wolfe, too, is natural and noble, and the Indian chief, like the Oneida warrior of Campbell,

A stoic of the woods, a man without a tear,

was a happy thought. The Battle of La Hogue I have heard praised as the best historic picture of the British school, by one not likely to be mistaken; and who would not say what he did not feel. Many of his single figures, also, are of a high order. There is a natural grace in the looks of some of his women which few painters have ever excelled. West was injured by early success he obtained his fame too easily-it was not purchased by long study and many trials-and he rashly imagined himself capable of any thing. But the coldness of his imagination nipped the blossoms of history. It is the province of art to elevate the subject in the spirit of its nature-and brooding over the whole with the feeling of a poet, awaken the scene into vivid life and heroic beauty; but such mastery rarely waited upon the ambition of this amiable and upright man,

JAMES BARRY.

JAMES BARRY was born in Cork, on the 11th of October, 1741. His mother's maiden name was Juliana Reorden; her ancestors had lost large estates in the county Cork, through rebellions and revolutions; "and his father, whose name was John," says one of his biographers, "had no occasion to blush at his pedigree, if it be true that he was of a collateral branch of the family which has been honoured with the Earldom of Barrymore." Whatever his remote ancestors were, we are certain that John Barry was bred a builder; that his want of success drove him to the sea; that, for many years, he commanded a vessel which traded between the Cove of Cork and England; and that he was fortunate in none of his pursuits.

Of the early education of James Barry we have but an imperfect account; but it must have been watched over with no common care; for in afterlife, when learning was wanted, no one found him deficient. When very young his father took him to sea; but to be pent up in a floating prison-to see the same monotonous scene setting upon him at night, and opening upon him every day, and to drudge and become familiar with the severe duties of a mariner's life, were not for one on whose mind art had already dawned. In the first place, he ran away, and was with difficulty found and brought back; and secondly, instead of handling ropes and adjusting sails, it was his pleasure to make sketches of the coast along which he sailed, or to draw groups and single figures upon the deck, to the amusement

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